


the most fragile part

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bitty teaching Jack how to figure skate, Figure Skater!Bitty, First Meeting, M/M, Olympian!Bitty, Professional Photographer!Jack, discussion of suicide, ridiculous goobers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack left hockey and became a professional photographer.  His shoot with Olympic figure skater Eric Bittle is the first time he's been back on ice for far, far too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr [here](http://des-zimbits.tumblr.com/post/146934064366/dontdropthepie-des-zimbits) in response to a prompt by [diamoric-lardo](diamoric-lardo.tumblr.com), who is also the person who invented Taiya Sift, CP fandom's fictional version of a pop star Bitty likes a lot who's good friends with Kent Parson.

Jack could have sworn the ice stopped calling out to him years ago, but 45 minutes after his subject is supposed to show up he’s lacing his old skates on.  He leaves his boots with his thermos and equipment bag on one of the high piled snowbanks at the edge of the ice, unzips his jacket a little, and takes off.

The skates were supposed to be a last resort, in case there were action shots or video takes he couldn’t get standing still, but the second time he laps the island at the far side of the lake he wonders if he wasn’t just kidding himself. He wanted a chance to skate again.  Skating still hurts his heart, all these years later, but it’s kind of like the little aches in muscles he doesn’t use this way anymore–it almost feels worth it, almost makes him want to do this again, just so he can recapture that feeling of flying.  It’s as though this is how feet are supposed to feel.

Then he looks up with a guilty start and sees a figure in a red and blue jacket standing by his stuff, and he doesn’t even know how long he’s kept Bittle waiting.

“You looked like you were having fun,” Eric Bittle laughs as Jack skates forward, full of apologies.  “Don’t worry about it, I’m running almost an hour behind today.  You had to keep warm somehow.  You looked–” he skips an eye down Jack, then up again– “pretty at home there.”

Jack shrugs, trying not to get flustered and awkward.  He wipes his nose on the back of his glove as discreetly as he can.  “I played hockey most of my life.  Should we get started?”

“Sure.”  Bittle stands up on his skates. “How’d you get into hockey?”

 _Thank you, God, for people who don’t know what Zimmermann means._   “Grew up in Montreal, Canada.  I was on skates before I could walk.  It’s kind of a way of life up there.”

“Oh.”  Bittle pushes off and starts skating small laps, limbering up.  He has to shout a little.  “Then how’d you get out of it?”

Jack shrugs, not that Bittle can see, and calls, “Didn’t love it enough.”  Bittle seems to accept this with a shrug and keep skating.  “Now can you do that the opposite direction, so you’re facing the sun when you go past me?”

Bittle can pose like a model; he barely needs Jack to give him pointers about the angle of light, when to adjust his jacket, when his hair is in his eyes.  Jack doesn’t usually chat much with his subjects, preferring to blend into the background as much as he can, but Bittle keeps up a steady stream of chatter.

“-Hardly ever get to skate on a natural surface like this, I mean, Lord, there are _reeds_  poking through the ice at one end! And rocks! It adds a whole ‘nother aspect of difficulty, can you _imagine_  what it was like for early competitors?  Who can skate like this?”  

He says all of this, of course, while warming up, sliding through tuns and spins, casually using Jack as a barre while he stretches his legs above his head, chattering through camel spins.  

“In Switzerland in the 20s,” Jack finds himself saying, “the ice was so bad they had to leave markers around rough spots, and skaters just worked it into their routines.”

“My god, right?  Sometimes I just feel so pampered in comparison.”  Bittle swings his arms a few times.  “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

“Good,” Jack says, adjusting his camera.  “Now let’s see if we can get any pictures without your mouth moving.”

“Why, you–!” Bittle sputters, laughing.  Jack presses the shutter.  He’s not totally serious about keeping Bittle quiet; part of what he wants to get down today is how this man shifts from furiously focused intensity to a lighthearted, outgoing chatterbox.  It’s fascinated Jack but for all the footage he’s watched, he doesn’t think anyone’s really _captured_  it.  Not that still, quiet moment of–

 _Oh._   He presses the shutter again.

–That vulnerability and tension, the moment he looks down before beginning to skate in earnest, like every single time lifting his chin takes a great deal of courage.

When he sees it again, in front of him, all the air goes out of Jack’s chest at once.  His hands still work, but he has trouble breathing.

It’s like falling in love, he tells his editor later, not yet aware that it _is_  falling in love; it’s when you find the most fragile part of a person and all you want to do is hold it gently and build up everything else around it, until what you have is a story about how strong and brave and wonderful it is.  

It’s like finding something you’d skate through the pain for.

He breaks out of his trance, there on the ice, and finds that Bittle is spinning jumps out of air half a lake away, not even looking back to see if the camera is aimed on him; so Jack shakes himself off, and skates after him.


	2. Chapter 2

He probably won’t last long in New York City.  They say there are two kinds of people–the ones who move to NYC and never want to leave, and the ones who flee after six months.  Jack’s always been a little apathetic about his environment so he thought all those myths about New York as this totally unique city with a special ethos wouldn’t apply to him, but it occurs to him that he’s angry because it’s before dawn and the streets aren’t quiet and empty, and that probably means this is not the city for him.

Just as the city wakes up and becomes _truly_  unbearable, he escapes it.  When the sun rises over the treetops it finds him on a train in upstate New York, his skate bag nestled in his lap.  His boyfriend meets him at the station with a warm cup of coffee.

They walk to the rink together, breath streaming in the air. Jack holds Bitty’s hand backwards, wrapping his palm around Bitty’s knuckles and fingers to keep them warm. It’s Jack’s first real autumn in years.   He came up to New England once last winter, for his shoot with Bitty, and for… a lot of reasons, he moved up a few months later. He’s _missed_  this, frost gleaming on the grass in shadows of buildings and cars, the sweet smell in the air and the hint of smoke, the brilliant red and orange and yellow of the leaves, every red maple saying _Hello, welcome back._  

Bitty chatters as they walk and sings as they warm up, skating in time to his habitual pop music.  Skating lessons with Jack have taken over the hour a week that is his official goof-off session.  It’s a concept his coach is really firm about; Bitty ’s supposed to spend the time improvising and having fun, so he stays fresh and spontaneous on the ice.  Jack has to fight to keep the tone light and keep him dancing, because his own habits of grim determination and strict discipline are still so hard to beat.

Sometimes he’s scared that this hour a week will ruin Bitty’s chances at true greatness, that dropping his push for perfection even a little will cost him his dreams.  But what Jack’s really coming to suspect is that between the two of them, the one who lost his dreams was the one who never lightened up.

So he tries to catch Bitty’s rhythm as he goes, to make it like a dance, there and gone, spinning sometimes; when Bitty launches himself into the air in something Jack’s eyes struggle to parse– _double loop, salchow, double axel?_ –he ends up half the rink away, grinning triumphantly, and Jack has to skate after him, one salchow landing well enough that he goes straight into another that he doesn’t quite stick when he lands–but Bitty’s laughing and clapping for him, punches him in the arm when he gets close.

“Someone’s been _practicing,_  Mister,” he says, grinning.

“Yeah,” Jack says, smiling a little shyly.  They sweep past centre ice again.

“Hey, guess what,” Bitty says, skating backwards in front of him.

“What?” Jack says, because Bitty looks like he’s got some huge idea he’s about to spring.

“You’re gonna do a toe jump today,” Bitty says brightly.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jack says, smiling at his confidence.  Then he catches his breath and says, “Hey, guess what.”

Bitty cocks his head.  “What?”

“I, uh.”  Jack ducks his head.  “I got a press pass for Pyeongchang.”

Bitty goggles at him for a minute, absolutely stunned, and then he’s throwing himself forward against Jack’s chest, arms around him.  “Jack! Oh my god! How did you  _do_  that?  Did a magazine hire you? Will you be there the whole time?  What events will you cover?  The venues seem pretty far apart, but even if you’re up in the mountains I bet I’d be able to come up and see you–”

Jack hasn’t really let go of him, just gently shepherded him a little so they can lean against the boards and talk.  “I didn’t get hired, it was given, uh… to me, individually. As a freelancer.  So I can go where I want.  So you don’t have to worry about that.”  He squeezes Bitty’s hands.  “But yeah, I mostly want to be… in the city, with you.”

“Okay, but…” Bitty is that combination of delighted-but-worried, like, _Yes, honey, but what will you do after the drug dealers take your kidney?_   “How?”

“So, uh.”  Jack sighs a little, trying to navigate through the story.  “My best friend when I was a teenager, who I played hockey with, is kind of the captain of Team USA right now.  So I kind of got him to pull some strings for me.  So I will be splitting a little time between your events and the hockey, but the venues are all in the same city.”

“You…”  Bitty blinks, does rapid mental calculations.  “Oh my god, you know _Taiya Sift’s boyfriend?”_

“He says they’re just good friends,” Jack assures him.

“Oh, come on, that’s still–” Bitty splutters.  “Jack!  I thought you said you didn’t talk to any of your old hockey friends!  Is it okay?  You–you go from that to asking him for a favour?  Jack, I really don’t want you to go to some huge trouble for me–”

Jack laughs.  “His exact words were, ‘Thank God, you’re finally letting me help you with something.’  He… when I dropped out of university and moved to Florida, I cut myself off from a lot of people because it was just too painful.  But the… the more I settle into my new life, where I get to pick my work and do what I love, the easier it gets to talk to people and not think about what might have been.  I think Kenny was angry with me for a while, half because he was afraid sometimes he’d get a phonecall that they’d found my body somewhere.  It was really good to be able to explain it to him, and apologize.  Tell him that he doesn’t need to worry anymore.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so glad for you! I know you miss them.”  Bitty squeezes his hands.  “I guess this means I’ll have to win gold, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, Bits, no, don’t think that.”  Jack leans down, rests his forehead against Bitty’s.  “I couldn’t be disappointed in you however you do.”  He considers for a second.  “But on the other hand, if you do, I promise that the sex in celebration will be pretty epic.”

Bitty beams at him and makes a kind of sobbing noise, like he’s just said something literally too adorable for words, and kisses Jack.  He breaks the kiss but doesn’t let go of Jack’s head, keeping their faces close together.  “Oh, you,” he says huskily.

“I love you,” Jack says.

“Oh my god, stop, you’re gonna make me cry,” Bitty says, wiping away tears on his sleeve.  “And you know what they say, there’s no crying in figure skating.”  He forces himself upright, hands on his hips, and sniffs.  His eyes well up again and he blinks hard twice, then looks at Jack with his best drill-sergeant impression.  It’s not very good, but it’s cute.  “All right, you beautiful human being.  Let’s get you doing toe loops.”


End file.
